Chinese Distillers Accused of Spiking Alcohol With Viagra

Erectile dysfunction drugs added to "health-preserving" liquor

Two distillers are under investigation in China for allegedly spiking their alcohol with the anti-impotence drug Viagra, officials said on Saturday.

Chinese investigators discovered over 5,300 bottles suspected of being tainted with sildenafil, the chemical name for Viagra, during a routine inspection of the two distilleries in the southern city of Liuzhou, BBC reports.

According to the city’s food and drug administration, the powdery white drug was added into three different types of “health-preserving” baijiu, a popular spirit analogous to vodka. Some bottles also contained naproxen and indomethacin, which are anti-inflammatory drugs, and tadafil, which is a different erectile dysfunction drug sold as Cialis or Adcirca.

Food safety remains a top public health concern in China, with a scandal involving 100,000 tons of rotting meat making headlines just weeks ago.

Giant Snails the Size of Tennis Shoes Are Waging Terror in Florida

The invasive snail was discovered in Miami in 2011

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Giant African snails that can grow to the size of a tennis shoe are thriving in southern Florida, eating hundreds of plant species and even the stucco off houses more than four years after the state launched a $10 million program to eradicate them.

The snails were first discovered in Miami in September 2011, AFP reports, the first invasion since the 1960s. Since then the species has spread to new territory, including the southern suburbs of Miami and the neighboring Broward County.

“The fact is they’re a human and animal health threat and they’re a threat to Florida’s agriculture. We can’t let the population continue,” said Mark Fagan, a spokesman for the state agriculture department.

The giant African snails have continued to elude the state’s eradication efforts, which can prove fruitless when the gastropods climb trees to avoid chemicals on the ground, or hibernate below the soil for months at a time.

Still, over 158,000 giant African snails have been removed in the past four years, with the last sighting reported in April, officials said. Two years must pass since the last snail is found alive in the wild for the state to declare the species eradicated.

See Cecil the Lion and Other Animals Light Up the Empire State Building

Images of endangered animals were projected onto the New York City landmark

Images honoring Cecil the lion and other endangered species illuminated the south side of Empire State Building on Saturday evening, broadcasting the plight of mass extinction onto one of New York’s most iconic landmarks.

The one-day show, called Projecting Change, is part of a promotion for the upcoming documentary Racing Extinction, which is set to air on Discovery Channel in December, according to the film’s official Facebook page. Projections of birds, tigers and bears were featured on the building, in addition to images of Cecil the lion, whom authorities say was killed illegally by an American dentist on July 1.

A brave girl takes action

Lexi’s mother, Angela Shymanski, lost control of her car on June 8 after falling asleep at the wheel on the way home from a family vacation near Calgary in Canada with Lexi and now 4-month old Peter. The car fell over a steep, 40-ft. embankment, knocking the mother unconscious, according to Metro News.

The little girl unclipped the five-point harness on her car seat and climbed barefoot up the embankment and flagged down a driver to help.

“It’s crazy,” Shymanski told Metro. “I only can remember one or two times where she got out of her five-point harness previously. She somehow got out, adrenaline or whatever, and barefoot hiked up the embankment.”

The mother suffered a broken back and the baby a serious brain bleed, but they are in recovery. The daughter is credited with saving their lives.

Woman Sues Credit Agencies After They Declare Her Dead

It took months of phone calls, letters and emails to convince the agencies she was alive

(ST. LOUIS)—A 40-year-old St. Louis woman isn’t dead, but she said she spent months trying to convince credit reporting agencies that she’s alive.

Alexandria Goree is suing Experian, TransUnion and Equifax over the glitch, contending that it was difficult to get loans or a new home, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Her suit, filed last week in federal court, said Goree found a “deceased” notation on her credit files in the summer of 2013. Such a notice can appear when a creditor informs a reporting agency that one of its customers has died.

“Wow. Words can’t really explain how I felt,” she said. “It was just emotional.”

She said she had to deal with numerous rejections from credit card companies and local businesses because the credit reporting firms said that she was dead.

“Anything that would require monthly payments,” she said, “I was only able to purchase with cash.”

Representatives of TransUnion and Experian told the newspaper that they couldn’t comment on pending litigation. A spokesman for Equifax said the company’s attorneys were just notified about the lawsuit and needed more time to research it.

Goree said the misinformation hurt her efforts in finding a new place to live after her grandson’s 2013 hit-and-run death outside her former home in north St. Louis County home. Her landlord agreed to let her break her lease to move away from the street where 2-year-old Darion Griffin was struck. Her lawsuit contends that a series of rental housing applications were rejected.

She said it took months of phone calls, letters and emails to convince Experian and TransUnion to return her to the land of the living. It’s unclear if Equifax also has done so.

Dave Grohl Has the Best Response to the 1,000 Italian Fans Who Played ‘Learn to Fly’

The rocker made a video...in Italian

Rocker Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters loved the video that 1,ooo of his Italian fans made playing “Learn to Fly.”

The fans from the group “Rockin’ 1,00o” made the video to convince the Foo Fighters to do a concert in Cesena, Italy.

In a response video posted on the Foo Fighters Facebook page, Grohl spoke in Italian, saying, according to a rough translation by a Facebook commenter: “Hi, Cesena! I am David, hello. I’m sorry, I don’t speak Italian. Only a little, a little. That video — but how beautiful! Very beautiful. Thank you very much [literally: a thousand thanks]. We are arriving [coming], I promise. We’ll see each other soon. Thank you very much. I love you. Bye.”

Man’s iPhone Miraculously Still Works After Falling From a Plane Over Texas

He found it under a mesquite tree

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A Texas man used an app to find his iPhone in a rural pasture after it fell 9,300 ft. (2,834 m) from a Beechcraft Bonanza airplane on a flight from Houston.

The phone fell out of the aircraft during a Monday flight, when a pressure change caused the door to open slightly. The owner of the phone, Ben Wilson, a Texas businessman, used the Find My iPhone app to locate the phone. They found it with a map and a satellite image.

“It was by the side of the road south of Jacksboro, under a mesquite tree,” Wilson told the Times Record News in Wichita Falls, Texas. “It was in one piece, scratched a bit on the corners but it still worked,” he said.

You Can Make a Teen Cancer Patient’s Birthday Wish Come True by Doing One Simple Thing

The North Carolina 16-year-old has done many selfless acts for other kids

North Carolina native Chris West has had three bouts of cancer since he was first diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2011. Over the years, he has done many selfless acts, such as raising money for other kids. This year, for his birthday on Aug. 19, he’s asking strangers to send him birthday cards to cheer him up. His address is: Chris West PO Box 5244 Concord NC 28027.